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Inside Review

From the same creators, Inside is considered the spiritual successor to Limbo. Starting out pretty much the same, players are thrown straight in to the game with no back story or progressive story throughout. Leaving the player to make their own conclusion as to what is happening in the game. You play as a boy who is being hunted down in a forest, and you are left to your own devices to work out the controls as there’s no tutorial.

Dev: Playdead

Pub: Playdead

Release Date: 29/6/16

PEGI Rating: 18

Players: 1

Download size: 2.31 GB

Genre: Action Adventure/Puzzle Platformer

Price: £15.99

Getting to grips with the controls however is pretty straight forward and the game does introduce some simple stuff early on for you to work them out. Controls also feel really smooth, along with the animations as you move around it looks and feels very fluid. As mentioned already you start off in a forest and you quickly realise that the people following you are not all that friendly. You’ll no doubt suffer an early death in this area as you get brutally gunned down if you miss hiding in a certain spot. The deaths in Inside are quite graphic, and do take you by surprise.

The game progression is as fluid as the controls, with no cutscenes or load times, you just move from area to area making a seamless enjoyable experience. There’s some really odd things that happen throughout that get your brain working, and often you’ll hear yourself saying “what the.. what’s going on here” Such as pulling a large slug like thing out of a pig’s arse. (It’s true, and you can see my reaction to this very scene in the video above). There’s also plenty of variety in the ‘puzzle’ elements too. From simple things like moving boxes to reach higher ledges, stopping at certain spots during chase scenes so you don’t get caught and some elements of stealth. there’s a few other bits too, but I don’t really want to put too many spoilers in.

The game’s not all that long, it will probably take 3-4 hours to complete, with nothing much to go back and play for other than the secret ‘collectables’ if you missed any during your playthrough. These can be collected from loading checkpoints too, they all have achievements attached to them and once you have got them all, you can go and trigger a secret ending if you know where to find it. which to be honest is just as an anticlimax as the proper ending. Although you probably shouldn’t expect more as you leave the game with as much of a clue as you had going in.

Visually the game is superb, it’s by no means realistic but it ‘fits’ perfectly with the overall theme of the game. For example, characters don’t have any facial features, keeping the mystery about the game. The colours are quite sombre and there’s a constant mist that sets the mood off nicely. The parallax scrolling you get throughout adds to the atmosphere too, and it’s just really nicely polished with, as I mentioned earlier, really smooth fluid animations. The audio is bang on too, there’s nothing that sounds out of place. The rustling of the leaves on the trees at the beginning of the game, the gunshots ringing throughout the forest, all perfect.

A download code was provided for this review by the developer/publisher

8.3100

Gameplay10

Graphics9.5

Audio9.5

Replay Value5

Value for Money7.5

Inside

Summary:
Inside is a great action adventure, sidescroller. There's a good variety of gameplay throughout. Although it is short lived, as it can be completed in a few hours, an anti-climactic ending with not much to go back and play for other than any missed collectables. Although the price tag is a little steep, It is very immersive and has that wow factor. If you liked the likes of Limbo and Monochroma you'll like this too.